Magda Rokosz-Wong and her business partner Tiffany Wong entered the Enterprise Challenge last year and won the Audience Choice Award: Best Pitch for their business 141Dining. We caught up with her a year later to see what she’s been up to since winning and how the competition helped her to launch her business.
Introduce yourself and your business.
My name is Magdalena Rokosz, and I graduated from the University of Greenwich in July 2023 after a 3-year undergraduate course in Human Resource Management. The business idea my partner Tiffany and I pitched during the Enterprise Challenge 2023 is 1-4-1 Dining. 1-4-1 Dining is a Social Enterprise that aims to build a strong community of givers that supports small, local businesses and people from underprivileged backgrounds while being zero-waste and carbon-neutral.
Tell us about your experience entering the Enterprise Challenge.
Before Tiffany and I entered the challenge, we didn’t have a firm plan for what we wanted to do. We didn’t have a business plan or a strategy to execute our idea. In the beginning, that’s all it was, just an idea. However, with the support from the Generator team, we started drafting and visualising what it could be, which gave us the confidence to move forward.
The Generator has helped us tremendously in getting our business idea into action. The team has run many workshops preparing us for every step of the journey, within the Enterprise Challenge and out in the real world. Some of the workshops included training on elevator pitches and how to pitch with purpose, finding our unique value proposition and financial planning.
We’ve received so much support and encouragement that it was worth taking part in the challenge just to be in the environment of entrepreneurs and go-getters. We have also been matched with a mentor, who was paramount to our growth as a business and as entrepreneurs.
What was your experience of starting a business while studying, and what do you think are the benefits?
Launching a business venture while pursuing my studies was a transformative journey that brought many benefits. It presented a unique set of challenges that ultimately taught me the value of resilience and adaptability. Navigating the complexities of running a business alongside my academic commitments required me to dig deep and persevere, even when faced with setbacks. This period of juggling responsibilities honed my time management skills and reinforced my ability to stay focused under pressure. This experience enriched my understanding of entrepreneurship and equipped me with practical skills that extend far beyond the classroom.
What’s the biggest lesson you learnt from starting a business?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt from starting a business was the importance of a good pitch. Pitching a business to potential investors or clients is like creating a captivating story – one of the most important things you’ll learn when entering the world of entrepreneurship. The skill of storytelling helps to communicate the vision for the business and, ultimately, captures the hearts of the audience. Crafting a killer pitch boosts confidence, sharpens communication style, and shows off the passion for your idea. That’s how you get people to subscribe to your vision.
What advice would you give to students entering the Enterprise Challenge this year?
Don’t hold back! Attend the workshops, be proactive and engage with the team. If you have doubts about your idea not being ready or not being ‘good enough’, shake them off. The Generator team is super helpful, and they want you to succeed. You don’t have to know everything from the start. All you have to do is prepare, show up and engage.
What have you been working on after the Enterprise Challenge?
Since the Enterprise Challenge, Tiffany and I decided to gain more exposure and conduct more in-depth market research before going all-in on our Social Enterprise. Thanks to the Enterprise Challenge, I got new ideas on how to grow my other business, and now I am working on moving my B2C business online. Tiffany is building a list of private clients who are potential investors that will help us bring 1-4-1 Dining to life.
